Mars Rovers Survive!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Thursday, August 30th, 2007

The dust is clearing on Mars and both of NASA’s rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are slowly resuming activity after 6 weeks of waiting. Power collected from Opportunity’s solar panels has reached 300 watt-hours which is enough to run a typical house light for 3-5 hours. Daily communication and a little movement is now possible.

Hooray! This is amazing, they only planned to last one year, and it has been ages! Congrats Spirit and Opportunity!

Link.

Posted in: News, Robot News.

The computer may know what you’re thinking…

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Thursday, August 30th, 2007

A young man named Desney Tan, 31, is teaching computers to read minds.

The payoff, he says, will be technology that improves productivity in the workplace, enhances video-game play, and simplifies interactions with computers. Ultimately, Tan hopes to develop a mass-market EEG system consisting of a small number of electrodes that, affixed to a person’s head, communicate wirelessly with software on a PC. The software could keep e-mail at bay if the user is concentrating, or select background music to suit different moods.

Sounds interesting, of course, but will it really sell? I don’t think women would want that sticky EEG paste for the electrodes on their hair. Hmm…

Link.

Posted in: News, Tech News.

Oooh… 2 Sided Touch Screen

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Thursday, August 30th, 2007

Researchers at Microsoft and Mitsubishi are developing a new touch-screen system that lets people type text, click hyperlinks, and navigate maps from both the front and back of a portable device. A semitransparent image of the fingers touching the back of the device is superimposed on the front so that users can see what they’re touching.

I must admit, if Microsoft released a good looking phone, with a two sided touchscreen, including flawless software, it would be a good competitior for the iPhone. What else could be used with a two sided touch screen? Hmm… maybe some sort of eBook reader… or maybe not. Either way, it’s cool!

Link.

Posted in: News, Tech News.